


Ouroboros

by chellerrific



Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellerrific/pseuds/chellerrific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cut off its head and end the cycle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ouroboros

Hiyori’s inner world is warped, a twisted cage that loops back in on itself until beginnings and endings become meaningless. This is how it always is. This is the normal state of affairs.

Hiyori Sarugaki, the serpent that devours itself.

_Cut off its head and end the cycle_ , her zanpakuto says.

Hiyori doesn't realize—doesn't acknowledge—forgets—ignores—the flaw in this argument.

It’s harder to do that today, though, harder to pretend.

“But that’s _my_ head.”

The Hollow sneers. “Think I wanna look like this? This stupid face, this small, weak body? Go ahead. I’d _rather_ you cut my head off. Except, of course, I doubt you can. This dog’s all bark and no bite.”

A growl tears its way out of Hiyori’s throat and she's on the offensive again, steel against steel, but it’s like fighting her own shadow. Maybe exactly like. The Hollow knows all her moves, slash for slash, parry for parry. Not even Shinji could predict and counter her moves with this level of ease, and she feels her already substantial anger rising further.

“That’s right, get mad,” the Hollow taunts. “That’s how you deal with everything, isn’t it? You make me sick. You can’t do anything so you throw insults and punches and hope no one will see through to how weak you really are.”

“Shut up!” The strikes come faster and harder now, but still none connect.

It’s not supposed to be like this. She should be home, at the Twelfth, with Kirio. The memories tear at her, threatening to rip her apart completely: Kirio first handing her her badge, cupping it in her palms as if it were a baby bird; Kirio talking about artificial souls and infinite possibilities; Kirio letting her help make dinner, because Kirio is the best cook in Soul Society and nobody would choose the mess hall over her.

And others, too: Shinji and Love and Hachi and everyone else, even that bastard Kisuke, whom she’s not sure she wouldn’t kill right now given the chance.

She’s angry, so angry, that this is happening to her, to them, an unfocused rage coming off her in waves. She shrieks again and tries to take it out on the Hollow.

“It’s no good, Hiyori,” the Hollow says. “You can’t win. Not as long as you don’t want to.”

Hiyori stumbles and only just barely manages to avoid having the serrated blade of the Hollow’s zanpakuto sink into the flesh of her abdomen.

“You forget,” the Hollow goes on, undeterred by the near miss. “I know everything you know. How you hate everything because you hate yourself. How you want to belong but don’t believe you can. How you lash out at everyone so they can’t do it first. How sometimes you delude yourself into thinking you’ve escaped that, but you and I both know you never really will. This place is proof of that.”

Hiyori goes for the kill but the Hollow deflects it easily and her zanpakuto flies from her hands, sinking into the ground some feet away. The Hollow follows this up with a hard punch to the jaw, and Hiyori goes flying too.

The Hollow leans back, hefting the duplicate zanpakuto onto its shoulder. “Hey. Have you noticed?”

Hiyori glares at the Hollow from the ground, trying to gather her strength. She will not respond.

“It’s just, don’t you think this is taking an awfully long time?”

The question sinks in, chilling Hiyori to the bone. She shouldn’t listen to the Hollow, knows time in the inner world can be tricky, but her instincts tell her the Hollow is right: this is taking longer than it should. The others were done by now. Mashiro had finished in an eye-blink. So why…

“I should also let you know that the longer this takes, the stronger I get—in here _and_ out there. Soon your friends will have no choice but to kill you. If I don’t kill them first, that is.”

“Heh.” Hiyori pulls herself to her feet, dragging a knuckle across her chin to wipe away the blood there. “I thought you knew everything I know. In that case you know that’s not going to happen.”

The Hollow’s eyes narrow. “That so.”

“That _is_ so. And I’ll tell you why: because everything is easy for them. Obnoxiously, infuriatingly easy. It’s part of why I can’t stand to look at them sometimes. You know that much, right? Because I see them and it reminds me of how I’ve had to claw and scratch for everything I’ve ever gotten and still I have so much less. And I hate them for it!” She laughs, a jagged, broken sound. “You won’t kill them. Maybe they’ll kill me, but the solution there is simple: I just have to kill _you_ first.” She reaches over to grab her sword, pulls it out of the ground. It feels good in her grip, right.

“You haven't been able to so far.”

“Yeah but now I’m just sick of hearing you talk!” She throws herself back in the fight, and this time it’s different.

She can tell by the look on the Hollow’s face that the Hollow feels it too. Hiyori’s gaining ground; it’s no longer a stalemate.

“How?” the Hollow demands.

Hiyori laughs again, and this time it’s steadier, with an edge of triumph. “I just realized. If you think you know how this is going to end, then you don’t really know anything at all.”

And this time the blade connects, severing the head from the neck in one clean stroke.

The head falls to the ground, laughing. “Cut off your own head to spite your face. That’s you all over, isn’t it? This isn’t the end of anything, you know, only another beginning.”

* * *

“Hiyori? Hiyori!”

Shinji is shaking her, and she wants to shake his neck.

But when she opens her eyes and finds his staring back, for once she’s not angry. “Crushed it,” she says.

He laughs and hugs her tightly, and she lets him, lets the others congratulate her, because she’s too exhausted to hit anybody else just now.

Let them have this moment, because she’ll never tell them the truth: that they were the ones who gave her the strength to win.


End file.
